Adapting to New Technology

July 8th, 2008

“Most people use about 35% of the capacity of any one technology,” says Michelle Weil, a psychologist and product-design consultant, “and then they stop.” 

I feel like everyone to a degree feels the pressure to learn new technology. I admire the people that don’t actually.  But if you work in the technical industry, as a designer, manager, programmer, or casual blog poster, you often feel the weight of not knowing things you think you should know.  This gets to be a major issue if you work in the technical field.  It forces you to learn, grow, get frustrated, and ultimately (at best) charge more per hour, and (at worst) keep your job.  But it’s our job to rise to the occasion and spend the late nights to learn the new widget that everyone’s asking for.

I think statistics say that your skills, as you know them today, will be obsolete in two years.  Boy does that suck.  But there’s plenty of opportunity to be the best in your field in a niche technology that just blossomed.  And there’s lots of money to be made in either training or making that niche technology.  That’s what inspires me. Being able to shape something that wasn’t there yesterday, and training others to do the same.  Getting inspired by www.thefwa.com , learning from www.lynda.com and using the programs from www.adobe.com .  It’s all there at our fingertips (literally) waiting to be created.  Exciting, yes?

Entry Filed under: Interesting